Lovely as a Princess and Daring as a Thief
by Daisy Jackson
Summary: Seraphina was raised in a tower by her a father a sorcerer. Jonathan mourns the sister he never knew once a year. Jace wishes to be a son and not just an heir. Isabelle fears she will become queen and be forced into a marriage of someone she does not love because of her brother's foolery. The TMI characters face challenges in a Tangled themed world.
1. Chapter 1

**Hey! This is going to be a Rapunzel themed fic. The story will be very much like Tangled but it will have a few differences for the story's sake. Also the character Seraphina is Clary. Ok, I think I went over all you need to know but if anyone has any questions about who is who and what not just ask. Some of the characters identities are unknown on purpose but others I'm just not adding because it doesn't flow explaining who every single person is. Also, disclaimer, I do not own the TMI characters. I would also like to add I got the inspiration for this story from another Rapunzel fic called Never Yet Beheld by Issi Herondale. I got a few ideas for this story from that story so I felt it was important to add that in there. Anyway enough with the AN. I hope you enjoy the story.**

There was once a land with magic. A land where the sun would grant gifts of life. There was also once a woman who longed for a daughter. She and her husband finally had a child, but he was a son. The women was a wonderful mother and loved her son very much but she still yearned for a daughter. After years of no success, the man sought out a sorcerer. The sorcerer told the man that a child would be conceived but that they must find the plant of the sun in order to ensure a healthy birth. The desperate couple searched high and low for the magical flower. One day the women felt that the baby would be coming shortly. The man was forced to search on his own clinging to the hope of safety for their unborn child. During his last attempt, he found the magical flower. Bringing it back to his wife just in time for her to drink its essences before the birth. The parents rejoiced as the baby was born in resemblance to her mother and brother with startling green eyes. Their joy was short lived however as the sorcerer came back that same night and demanded payment in the form of their new child. The parents were devastated as their youngest child was swept away. The child was hidden away in a tower, the sorcerer raising the young Seraphina as his own. On the other side of the kingdom, a young prince lived in the palace pleading for the day he would be treated as his siblings were. As a son and not just the heir.

The prince was just passed his twenty-first year when his father sent for him. Jace entered the throne room to see what his father needed of him.  
"Son, you are to be king one day. And as such, I believe it is time you married." Jace looked at his father in astonishment.  
"Marry?" Jace asked stunned. "You must be joking," Jace stared his father down. Jace had been with women before. It was in his nature to act out against what he was supposed to and not to do. If it was the wrong thing to do Jace had surely attempted it. Though Jace had a strong carefree and reckless facade in truth he took his leadership seriously. The king knew if polished properly he could yet make Jace a diamond of a king. It was the polishing he was concerned with. Jace often sought other pass times to foolery only truly doing it to attempt at true fatherly concern. But the king had none to give to his eldest child. He was the heir first. Though Jace had a strong and skilled mind his acting out had blinded the people into seeing nothing but a reckless prince who'd end up getting himself killed before his coronation. The possibility of his early demise had been discussed before on several occasions. If it were to take place the king's second son Alec would not accept the title as heir leaving it to the king's third child Isabelle. Isabelle prayed this day would never come knowing her youngest brother Max was raised even more lax than that of her and Alec and would never be fit to rule. And though the chance was also small as a princess as queen marrying a stable boy was completely absurd. And yet her heart truly did belong to the stable boy. But back to the matter at hand for Isabelle's heart was not the one in peril at this very moment.  
"I would think this might ground you. Maybe with a bride to think of you'll realize how many people will be depending on you. And perhaps this will end your foolish endeavors into the woods!" The king cried. The prince was in outrage.  
"I will not marry! Not for you or anyone else! Whichever princess you were planning to pawn off on me will have to be disappointed!" The prince stormed out of the throne room before his father could utter another word. As Jace stormed toward the stables he ran into a friend. Jonathan Graymark the son of Archduke Lucian or Luke Graymark and Duchess Jocelyn Graymark.  
"What happened with your father?" Jonathan asked concerned with his friend.  
"He is forcing me to marry," Jace spat. Through his anger, he noticed something in his friend's eyes. "What is it, Jonathan?"  
"It's just," his friend began. "In a week's time the lanterns will again be lit," he sighed. Jace clasped his older friend's shoulder. At the age of 4, Jonathan's parents had lost their second child to a deal with a sorcerer. On that fateful day, they cast lanterns into the air hoping their daughter would one day return. Every year since they lit the lanterns on her birthday. As more people noticed over the years the whole kingdom soon filled the sky with lanterns hoping one day the young girl would return. This year would be her 19th birthday and nearly the whole kingdom would be mourning a lost child. Jace comforts his friend before continuing his way to the stables. Jace's luck still seems to be intact as he reaches the stables to find the stable boy nowhere in sight. He must be eating. Jace thought noting it to be the servants' dinner time. Jace leaped on his horse and rode far into the woods. Earlier that day Seraphina had a talk with her own father.  
"Are you sure you must be away that long? You'll miss my birthday," she said. She had been disappointed knowing there was no way her father would let her go out on her own. She thought that maybe she could persuade him to take her to see the floating lights but if he would be away there was no point in even asking.  
"I'm sorry Seraphina, but I promise to return with more paints and canvases than you can imagine." That Sunday morning had not gone as she had hoped. She would be 19 the following week but he would not return until two weeks after that point. She was in need of more painting room though, the walls were all but filled and she'd long run out of drawing paper.  
"All right father, let me help you with preparations, three weeks is an awfully long trip. Where are you going?"  
"There are many ingredients that go into my potions, some are found very far off. It's a week's travel and I'll need at least a week there so yes, it will take quite some time." That night Seraphina read while itching to draw. That same moment two men were in the woods. One was the sorcerer on his way toward the kingdom and the other was the prince on horseback who'd been riding all night to get as far away from it as possible.


	2. Chapter 2

"Hey wait!" Jace called from the pile of brush his horse had thrown him into. He really didn't feel like getting lost in the forest. But his horse did not wait and Jace was stranded in the woods. Jace moved his hair out of his face and felt blood come back on his hand. He had gotten a nice gash on his forehead. Thanks for nothing! Jace thought angrily. He was in the woods, stranded, at night. Fabulous. Jace got up to start walking back toward the palace when a light shined in his eye. He looked behind him to find nothing but vines clinging to the mountainside. But his interest was piqued, he couldn't just turn around and walk away. Jace put his hand against the vinery and he fell through. Through the vines, Jace found a clearing inside the mountain. The clearing looked as though someone had emptied out a volcano and planted a garden. There were trees and a lake with flowers blooming everywhere. Roses, lilies, daisies, sunflowers, hydrangeas, and more. But the most noticeable thing in the clearing was the abandoned tower. Jace climbed up the tower hoping to find shelter for the night since there was no way he'd make it home. It was much darker in the woods than the clearing with moonlight shining off the lake. As Jace entered the tower he noticed it was much bigger inside than the outside portrayed. As much as he could see was a large room with couches around a fireplace. The large room had a hallway leading to more rooms just off of it. Directly off the larger room was an open kitchen. In the kitchen was a golden-haired girl charging with a frying pan. Wait.. what? Bam!

Clary had put her book down a while ago unable to get into it. She was currently working on a potion her father had taught her. He had let her keep the old pans for heating her potions and she had just dug the biggest one out of the massive pile crammed into the cabinet when she heard the door open. How did the door open? She thought. She had closed it, she was sure. If her father had come back for some reason he would call to her. He wouldn't even be able to open the door from the ground. So who opened it? Seraphina grabbed the heavy pan and charged at whatever came in swinging the pan wildly. The pan smacked into the boy's head knocking him out cold.  
"Frying pans. Who knew?" She said to herself looking proudly at her pan. She looked back at the boy a bit frightened but more than anything else she was curious. It was a real live person, besides her father, that was in her tower. In her tower!  
"What, what hap-" Was all the now half-conscious boy got out before being hit in the head yet again.

"Ok Sera, you can do this, he's just a person, he's just a person, he's just a person," she rattled off to her self. Then she lightly tapped his cheek.  
"Wake up," She said softly. "Wake up." She said louder. "Wake up!" She yelled in his face.  
"Huh," the boy mumbled coming to.  
"Who are you?" She asked lead over the boy and the chair she had bound him to. With a lack of rope, she had bound him with her own hair. It was so long she could probably make it to her bedroom and he wouldn't even slide an inch.  
"Where, where am I?" The boy asked groggily.  
"Who. Are. You." She asked again slower.  
"Who are you?!" Jace asked finally getting a sense of his surroundings.  
"Who are you!?" She yelled back. The boy stopped for a moment.  
"Jace," he answered. "Who are you?" He retorted.  
"My name is Seraphina, this is my tower and I'd like to know what you're doing in it," She asked in a cold manner.  
"My horse threw me off and I got lost. I found the tower and climbed it assuming it to be abandoned and seeking shelter until I could make my way home in the morning. Now could I please get out of this rope?"  
"Fine," she answered promptly untying him and practically pushing him out the window. When he got to the bottom he looked back up and yelled.  
"Goodbye Seraphina!"  
"Don't come back!" She yelled sending him off.  
"I will!" He yelled back. Did she hear him right? Will he come back? Well, that's ridiculous.  
"What! Why would you come back?" She asked.  
"Because you've peaked my curiosity," he said. "Because I want to know the story of the beautiful girl in the tower." Seraphina was glad he was so far away so he couldn't see her blush. She was worried that even though he was far away he could still see her blush with the light of the newly risen sun.  
"There is no story," she called. "Only a girl that lives in a tower with her father."  
"Her father," he said surprised. "So where is he then?"  
"He's away on a trip, but it is short. Just an outing. And it is definitely not a story." She demanded.  
"Your tower walls tell a different story. They are covered in art. There has to be a story in there doesn't there," he asked.  
"I simply painted them there is no story," she said yet again.  
"You say there is no story. Perhaps that is true. But then perhaps I could help you write one?" He asks.  
"If you're so insistent to come back then do so. But I make no promises about what happens to you when you get here. I may hit you with the frying pan again," she warns.  
"I'll take my chances," he says smiling as he walked back out of the clearing. He surely is something else entirely. She thinks going back to the kitchen to eat breakfast.


	3. Chapter 3

_She is something else._ He thought as he walked through the woods. She tied me up! He thought back finding it funny in retrospect. She certainly made him curious. He knew she'd kicked him out. He knew she probably didn't want him there. But he also knew he was too curious to back down. He knew he'd go through an army to get back to her. He had to know her story even if she thought she didn't have one. Everyone has something to, something to add. Everyone has their own two sense to thrown in. Everyone questions his decisions. But she didn't. She had nothing to say and nothing to prove. She had tried to talk him out of his decision to come back. But she didn't question it. She didn't question him. She didn't know who he was. To her, he was just Jace. He was just the guy she'd hit with a frying pan when he came into her house in the middle of the night. To her, he could just be another person. And he knew he wasn't going to lose this opportunity. The opportunity to be Jace. Not the disappointment of an heir, not the troublesome prince, not soon to be a dead brother. Not a problem. All right maybe he was making himself a bit of a problem but it was more of a bother if anything. He wasn't something that needed to be fixed. And he wanted to keep that person in his life. A person who didn't try to fix him in all the wrong ways.

No, I don't. Seraphina thought internally debating with herself. Yes, you doooo. I do not miss him! Yeah, you do. Yeah, I do. She thought miserably. It had been two days since Jace left that Monday morning. It was boring being in the tower by herself. She'd read every book in the house at least once. Her father brought new ones back occasionally but she always reads them quickly. She is sometimes able to lose track of time when drawing or painting. Unfortunately, she was unable to do so. She put the puzzle pieces back into the book knowing she couldn't concentrate on forming the garden scene. She picked up her guitar to sing a song her father has taught her. He told her there was once a magical flower given as a gift to the earth from the sun. He said if you sang this song to the flower it's magical powers it would grant beauty to everything around it.  
"Flower, gleam, and glow.  
Let your power shine.  
Make the clock reverse,  
Bring back what once was mine.  
Heal what has been hurt,  
Change the fates' design,  
Save what has been lost,  
Bring back what once was mine.  
What once was mine."  
"Lovely voice," Seraphina turned at the sound of his voice.  
"Jace," she said in shock as she turned to face him.  
"Hello, princess," he smirked pulling himself through the window.  
"My name is not 'princess'," Seraphina said sourly.  
"I know," he said. He knows? She thought aggravated.  
"So what are you doing back here," she said coolly.  
"I'm here for a story," he said simply. Seraphina rolled her eyes.  
"I've already told you there is no story," she responded stubbornly.  
"Really? There has to be more to you than the fact that you live here with your father, Seraphina," He does know my name.  
"Well, I paint," she said.

A few days later. Jace POV  
"Jace is not fit to rule," her father said loudly. Isabelle stopped to listen as she passed by her parent's room.  
"Robert, you know that's not true. He has the skills and compassion to be a great leader," her mother argued.  
"Yes, I know that Maryse, but he's just so reckless," he said lowering his voice from anger to sorrow. "I fear one of these days he might not come back out of those woods." Isabelle was shocked to hear this. Of course, the King's advisers and cousins had discussed with him, and with us what would happen should anything happen to Jace, but she had never heard her father's personal views regarding anything about her oldest brother.  
"Oh, Robert. I'm worried about him too. But we both know that pushing Jace into anything always makes things more difficult rather than less. Do you really think stripping him of his title would be good for anyone?" Isabelle was rather curious about his answer, it directly affected her too.  
"Yes. He would be a good leader but I think he's beyond the point of being lead in the right direction. And this would stop his escapades. As heir, he gets to do whatever he wants, but as the prince, he would have to stay in the castle, just as his siblings do. We must think of everyone, especially our children."  
"Perhaps you're right, things are surely out of hand. He's been gone sun up until past sundown every day this week. It's gotten too far out of control," Maryse agreed. Isabelle ran to the stables as fast as she could.

"No, I'm serious, this is fun," I said munching on the brownies we had just made. "You're probably one of the best bakers in the country, although you did have my help so- ow," I shrieked. She pinched me!  
"To think you could give an actual compliment," she complained.  
"Well, you, can't just go around pinching people," I said flabbergasted.  
"Sure I can," she said pinching me again.  
"Ow!" I yelled as she giggled.  
"Don't you giggle at me, that hurt! You pinch like a spider!" I yelled.  
"Oh, yeah, I-" she was cut off as the clock struck sending 10 booming sounds.  
"It's ten o'clock," I said sorrily. "I should be getting back or people might worry."  
"All right," she said glumly. "You'll come back tomorrow though won't you?" She inquired hopefully. Just as she had the night before and before that though she still pretended to dislike him the night before that. Sera's face fell, my expression that clearly gave everything away.  
"I'm sorry, I can't, not tomorrow. I have to be there for the lanterns. It's my friend you see, they're for his sister, she was taken as a baby and they light the lanterns hoping she'll return. It's a hard day for their family. I need to be there for him. I'm sorry," I said wishing I could spend the time with her.  
"Oh, no, I understand. If your friend needs you then you should be there," she said. And she meant it. I could see in her eyes that it was more than the right thing to do. She wanted me to be there for them. That made me want to be with her even more.  
"You should come. I could bring an extra horse in the morning. You would love the village. The day of the lanterns has become a festival of sorts. Singing and dancing. And art there'll be loads of art. And then when the sunsets everyone casts lanterns into the air," I said gleefully.  
"Oh, Jace," she sorely smiled as she tucked a golden lock behind her ear. "It sounds beautiful, but I'm not supposed to leave the tower. My father's always told me it's dangerous out there, that's why I stay in the tower you see." She explained.  
"Dangerous?" I asked. "Sure no matter where you go there could always be the possibility of danger, but Corona has to be one of the safest kingdoms in the world." I chuckled. She looked at me strangely.  
"Can I trust you with a secret?" She asked me. Though she did appear to be asking herself more than me.  
"Of course," I said trying to reassure her. She picked up a needle and pricked my palm.  
"What are you-"  
"Shh," she interrupted wrapping her blonde hair around my bleeding palm.  
"Flower, gleam, and glow.  
Let your power shine.  
Make the clock reverse,  
Bring back what once was mine.  
Heal what has been hurt,  
Change the fates' design,  
Save what has been lost,  
Bring back what once was mine.  
What once was mine." She sang before untangling her hair leaving no trace of blood or the prick.  
"What did you-" I began.  
"Magic," she said. "My hair has magical properties. My father was afraid if anyone found out they'd try to cut it and sell it, but if it's cut it loses its power. A gift like mine. I have to protect  
It," she looked at me as if she was trying to will me to understand. I nodded because I understood, I did. She had a gift that she was afraid to share with other people, but she trusted me. She did trust me.  
"Ok," I said realizing we had little chance of seeing each other tomorrow. "But if you change your mind then I'll be at the boats when we send the lanterns into the air. You'll find me at that boats, and if not then I will see you sometime soon, I promise." And with that, I climbed down the tower.


End file.
